The Dragonflies Of My Chest

 

It is you
who placed the dragonflies in my chest
yesterday. 
Still.
Undiminished, AND the wet, delirious, expanding blueness of the center of the ocean,
to me.  

I see you clearly across my mother’s quilt, 
woven,   together
a metaphor for our limbs – since we met,
the white sand clinging to your bare breasts,
where her lips nurse,  
as I have,
and still, I have no words collected, or understanding of how to convey them
if I did. 

And the Aries of me HOWLS!    Below the surface. 
 Claws at the photographs of memories
that
are still young and fresh to the mind’s touch,
Could you pry open with your motherly fingers,  my chest,
past the rib bones, and the muscle,
and grasp ME between your hands
the flesh and the shaft
of my essence:
discovering..
half of me, yet, hidden and dark,
half of me skipping like stones on a lake
at just the sight of you.

swaying in the depths
of my hammock,
I consider the aftertaste of anger, and the sadness that
remains a scar on my shoulder, 

Who am I to throw punches at the ghosts and wilderness of our past?
Who am I to say [ YES, NO, PERHAPS ] to the stories of god’s hidden dreamer?

And in the flesh,
I mock you!    The constellations of your thoughts, the recklessness of your freckles,  the obscenity of your tussled hair,  
NOT because I agree with you…  
but, because I find those parts of you marvelous and breathtaking. 
As I always have. 
Never question your beauty! 
 WOMAN.    
Never speak poorly of your much-ness.
You shimmer. 
Sparkle.    Like the dream where I am the rascal
and you are the    
Mermaid,
from the ocean,
Where I found you. 
Chasing whales. 

And
As the night folds in around us,
through the gray of a San Francisco fog,   
SEE you finally,
as we used to be.
Gingersnaps between lips.
Shaking hips.
Dino disco.

And
 the Uncanny Adventures of Free Giraffes.
reclaiming your cursive,
 redeeming
her
simple, elegant, earthly ferociousness.  
Rowdy, fearless, eager.
YOU CAN”T FUCK THIS UP.

Not on the pages,

Not anywhere.

I see you.  






Andrew Tipton